Wind gusts reached 55 to 65 mph in New London County, said David Stark, a National Weather Service meteorologist. A 78-mph gust was recorded in Westbrook, he said.

In Windham County, a gust of 60 mph hit Thompson, and a 58-mph gust was recorded at Willimantic Airport, National Weather Service meteorologist Kim Buttrick said.

The wind was accompanied by half an inch to an inch of rain, Stark said.

Lebanon was one of the hardest-hit towns in the region.

“We still have over 500 homes without power,” First Selectman Joyce Okonuk said Thursday afternoon. “That’s a lot, with temperatures the way they are.”

She said the town was opening a shelter Thursday night at Lyman Memorial High School that residents of Lebanon and Columbia could use to get warm, take showers and charge electronic devices. The shelter would not be open overnight, she said.

Okonuk said she was told CL&P would begin major repairs in town today at the earliest.

“I think this took them by surprise,” she said.

Modifica said CL&P was “closely monitoring the weather” since early Wednesday, and it had deployed hundreds of crews across the state to repair lines and help towns clear roads.

Several roads were closed in Lebanon as of Thursday afternoon, including Cook Hill Road, Tobacco Street, Seabury Road and Adam’s Heights Road.

In Montville, another hard-hit town, more than 3,000 customers lost power as a result of the storm. All schools were closed. Parts of Route 163, Chapel Hill Road and Old Colchester Road were closed because of downed trees.

Norwich “fared quite well” in the storm, Emergency Management Director Gene Arters said. No roads had to be closed. Arters said he received nine calls for sandbags to prevent flooding in basements.

About 200 customers of Norwich Public Utilities lost power in the storm, NPU Communications Director Mike Hughes said. Most were in the Canterbury Turnpike area.

Power was restored Thursday morning to everyone except for 14 customers living on Barbers Road in the Occum part of the city, Hughes said. The delay for them came because a CL&P high-voltage line fell onto an NPU line. “If that line was not lying on top of ours, we’d be done,” he said.

Page 2 of 2 - CL&P was scheduled to finish its repairs to the line about 6:30 p.m., Hughes said, and NPU would fix its line and restore power within an hour after that.

Hughes said NPU is providing CL&P with three mutual aid crews starting today.

Elizabeth Rybak, who lives on Round Hill Road in Salem, said a tree came down, blocking the road.

Rybak said she came home about 5:15 a.m. after working the graveyard shift and was still awake when she heard the tree fall about 6 a.m.

“It was just a huge whistle and a loud crash,” she said.

Because she couldn’t get her car out of her driveway, Rybak had to walk her daughter to school, skirting power lines the tree took down as well. School in Salem opened two hours late.

Rybak said at 4 p.m. that the tree was still blocking the road, wires were still down in her driveway and power at her house was still out, although crews were working there. Unless the tree is removed, she wouldn’t be able to go to work Thursday night, Rybak said.